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Jossiping With Down By The Hipster
Where Open bars are a way of life

A long time ago, in a kingdom not so far away, a young Jossip editrix named Corynne decided it might be fun to interview her gossip, media and PR peers in a semi-regular (and uncharacteristically earnest) feature she creatively entitled ???Jossiping.??? In honor of our predecessor, we???ve decided to bring back the tradition, one informal sit-down at a time.

This week: raronauer catches up the guy behind Down By The Hipster.

To the green New Yorker, ???open bar??? may sound like the two sweetest words in the English language. But with experience and an extensive rolodex comes cynicism. After all, not all open bars are created equal. The people behind Down By The Hipster, a hospitality and nightlife blog, know a few things about free drinks.

So tell me a bit about your blog; Who are you writing for?

No audience in particular, but there is definitely a void in the marketplace, discussing high end hospitality and nightlife. That’s what is interesting to us and that is what we choose to cover and obviously we have found our niche.

How did you get into the high end scene?

It’s just the most interesting, it’s where the most innovation takes place, or is attempted, and so you look to see what is being attempted, what’s working and what doesn’t. At the end of the day, a bar or restaurant is there to make money by selling food and drink, but how you do it, who wins and who loses and why is interesting. Plus all of the design and personalities that evolve. Its great theater

And by “into,” I meant more how did you get invited? From your blog, it seems like every night is open bar night.

Oh. Ok. You could go out 5 nights a week in this city and not pay for a drink. It’s just through friends, colleagues, etc. And picking your spots.

I know what you mean. Covering events for Jossip, the open bar has lost its cache for me. A free hangover is still a hangover. So all the openings you cover on your blog, you just found out about through friends?

Mostly. With no advertising or marketing, DBTH has achieved a total saturation into the world of PR, marketing and media. We know this because they tell us. So while most of the things we cover are things we would go to anyway, we get a lot of invites to new things now which is great.


How does getting an invite change the event for you? Do you feel like a restaurant critic, whose identity must be kept secret?

No to the second question. To the first, there is just a ton of B.S. out there that is worthless, so you have to pick your spots. Who cares that a new yogurt store has captain crunch as a topping?

So you’re a Tasti-D fan?

Ha. Stay away from food that starts off in powder form. It’s no good for anyone. But you want to go to cool events where their is great music and in a building or venue you have never seen and have drinks and meet some people. So more invitations are good, but most of them are worthless

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Dec 4, 2007 · Link · Repond

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